Progress on regular funding bills has been limited as Congress spent the first half of the year negotiating and then ultimately passing a budget reconciliation bill setting long-term tax and spending policies. Image: Paul Pellegrino/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe Senate is to join the House at the end of this week in a recess until after Labor Day, leaving Congress only a month to address key policy and funding decisions ahead of the September 30 end of the current fiscal year and agency spending authority.
Already warnings are being sounded of the need to pass at least a temporary funding measure by the end of September to head off a partial government shutdown and the resulting unpaid furloughs of hundreds of thousands of federal employees.
The most common outcome in that situation is an extension of funding, mostly at current levels, for several months. However, those deadlines commonly are used as leverage on policy issues, often leaving action to the last minute. One such complication this year could be further White House requests for recissions of spending previously approved, following recent passage of a bill to rescind funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting programs.
Progress on regular funding bills has been limited as Congress spent the first half of the year negotiating and then ultimately passing a budget reconciliation bill setting long-term tax and spending policies. Meanwhile the White House has not issued—and apparently will not—the type of detailed proposal that typically acts as the starting point for the appropriations process.
The Senate has passed none of the 12 appropriations bills and the House has passed only three, although all but two others have passed the committee level there. One of those two is the general government spending bill which sets general federal workplace policies on pay and benefits issues.
That bill has emerged from the subcommittee level, however, and as expected it does not provide for a January 2026 federal employee pay raise. While silence regarding a raise is a common practice in such bills, that typically is a way of accepting by default the figure recommended by the White House. The partial budget documents issued to date assume that no raise will be paid; President Trump is expected to affirm that position in a message that must be sent to Congress by the end of August.
The most prominent policy change regarding the federal workplace in the House’s general government bill would prevent coverage in the FEHB of “surgical procedures or puberty blockers or hormone therapy for the purpose of gender affirming care.” Also, a longstanding restriction on training that is not work-related would be expanded to bar “diversity, equity, and inclusion training or implementation.”
It further would prohibit investments in the TSP in funds “that make investment decisions based primarily on environmental, social, or governance criteria.” Because the TSP’s own funds use no such criteria, that would apply only to investors using the “window” feature which allows limited investments in outside mutual funds by account holders who meet certain criteria.
The TSP has said in the past that such a restriction could compel it to discontinue that feature since it lacks the resources to review the investment standards of the many thousands of mutual funds available through the window. Only about 7,000 of the more than 7.2 million TSP account holders have such accounts, which hold only about $600 million of the more than $1 trillion in assets.
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Order Formally Launches ‘Schedule Policy/Career,’ Adds Category of Appointees
Court Allows Order against Unions to Remain, but Congress Eyes Stepping In
See also,
Top 10 Provisions in the Big Beautiful Bill of Interest to Federal Employees
A Pre-RIF Checklist for Every Federal Employee, From a Federal Employment Attorney
Work Longer or Take the FERS Supplement Now: Which is Better?
Doubling Your TSP (C Fund vs G Fund)
